There is no better way to make good than to be meticulous

A well-known American electricity meter manufacturer had a long-standing problem: Looking around the world, they couldn't find a transformer that could meet their test requirements, so they had to purchase at a lower standard.

Xiamen Zettler Electronics Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Zettler Electronics). Finally found the answer to this conundrum. It took the company two full years of trial and error to finally invent a new structure that not only succeeded in producing a transformer that satisfied customers, but also patented it. After the product was put into production, its project team also continued to optimize it according to the quality analysis method. After more than one year of mass production, the product shipment reached 100% qualified.

Founded in Germany, Zettler Group has more than 100 years of relay manufacturing experience and world-leading precision engineering manufacturing technology. Heart". As an important branch of the Group in China, Zettler Electronics has also carved the spirit of craftsmanship into its bones. Feng Jingen, general manager of Zettler Electronics, told "CEConline" that in order to create a good product with excellent quality, it is necessary to indulge in it and not give up every detail.

Automation of each process

Feng Jingen's understanding of the spirit of craftsmanship is: "If one thing can be done in one minute, it should be better in two minutes. What we pursue It's about doing things as good as 2 minutes in 1 minute." Zettler Electronics' means of practicing this craftsmanship is "automation".

Xiamen's land is very expensive, and labor costs are also rising. As a manufacturer with a century-old German brand DNA, Zettler Electronics is constantly thinking about how to use every inch of land rationally, forcing it from process engineering, process optimization in order to expand production capacity and enhance competitiveness. Since the first potting production line in 2009, Zettler Electronics has continued to automate the transformation of the production line. Feng Jingen said: "We optimized the 40-meter-long production line into a small space of 100 square meters through U-shaped design. It is a process of continuous accumulation and re-precipitation, from unmanned in one process, to unmanned in a workshop, and then to the automation of the entire factory. At present, 80% of our orders are completed through automated production lines.”

Because it is not a one-time investment in a production line, the production personnel, technicians and external suppliers jointly study the design of the equipment from beginning to end, and continuously improve it in a lean way, and complete automation one process at a time. Slow work and meticulous work, with enough time to run in, all participants have a very thorough understanding of the overall process characteristics, the price of the product has gradually dropped, and the quality and delivery time are guaranteed, allowing customers to see improvements in three aspects.

In the process of automation transformation, not only the management team should participate in the training of lean production, and the savings brought by the reduction of working hours should be shared with the production team in the form of bonuses, but also motivate all employees by sharing the improvement results. Participation strengthens the cohesion of the team.

Manufacturing management expert Lu Shiying believes that before the implementation of intelligentization, many enterprises did not have adequate industrial engineering management, and even did not have IE engineers. The management of working hours was poor and it was easy to lose control. He pointed out that the production process needs to be standardized and simplified first, and then intelligentized after step-by-step automation. Zettler Electronics has done a very good job in the automation process, laying a solid foundation for future intelligence. He also suggested that in the process of intelligent transformation of production lines, enterprises must independently develop key equipment related to core technologies to improve technical barriers. After the realization of automated production, equipment maintenance and parts management become particularly important. No matter how good the equipment is, if the maintenance cannot keep up, not only the production efficiency will be affected, but the life of the equipment may also be greatly shortened.

Keeping up with the rhythm of fast-moving consumption

Before 2008, Zettler's electronic market was mainly in foreign countries. After the financial crisis, the sales volume dropped sharply. Began to actively explore the domestic market, the products have also shifted from industrial products to the core components of white goods, and have successively developed moisture-proof, waterproof and anti-corrosion transformers for various climates in the north and south. At present, the products have accounted for more than 50% of the Chinese washing machine transformer market. share.

In the past two years, Feng Jingen has clearly felt that, unlike the foreign home appliance industry, China's home appliances are gradually transforming from durable products to functional and new fast products. When there is a problem with the product, consumers are too lazy to To repair it, choose to replace it with a new one. For example, a washing machine company must launch a new product every six months, and each product has a life cycle of about two years.

In the traditional sense, the craftsman spirit of slow work and meticulous work, how to deal with it in this era of rapid consumption? Zettler Electronics' answer is: products and services can only be provided at this pace. To this end, the company has done a lot of homework on the supply chain.

The improvement of product flow at the physical level of the supply chain is limited, and it is difficult to optimize too much, but there is more room for improvement of information flow. The previous model was that customer demand was fed back to R&D personnel through sales personnel, and the information was attenuated very much in the middle. After the adjustment, they made direct connection between the technical personnel of the two project teams through internal resource allocation, which greatly improved the timeliness and accuracy.

In addition, because some products of home appliance enterprise customers are outsourced, home appliance customers only give the outsourcer 2 weeks to complete production. The front-line sales staff of Zettler Electronics strive to understand the manufacturing needs of home appliance customers at the first time, and decompose the order needs before the outsourcer places an order. The purchasing department prepares the goods in advance according to the data analysis over the years and the fluctuation of the order. When the actual order comes, the raw materials are ready for production, and even 50% of the products are ready in most cases.

Lu Shiying pointed out that German companies attach great importance to supply chain management, requiring 80% of suppliers to produce according to their model, and even have strict counterpart management on the packaging methods of spare parts. can save a lot of costs. Today's manufacturing industry is in a fully competitive environment, and all customers are very sensitive to price, quality, and delivery time, and none of them has shortcomings. Feng Jingen mentioned, "In fact, as long as the quality management system is strictly implemented in the production process and implemented strictly in accordance with international standards, the quality of the products will not be poor. Now many domestic manufacturing companies are very impetuous, and in order to complete the task quickly The quality standard leads to the poor overall quality and reputation of the entire Chinese manufacturing industry. In fact, as long as every detail is done well, the process is correct, and the result will be 99% correct.”

Photo / Zettler